Page 75 of Love's Ace

Something he’dalreadybroken.

And I thought about the fear in Theo’s voice, the pain, the way he’d given up on anyone ever being safe.

The way he was so afraid to let someone touch him.

And the way there were cracks and fissures in his chest that had let the Enmity in to begin with that weren’t hisfault.

Nevermind that it was what had brought us together, and nevermind that I never would havehadhim if it weren’t for all of this.

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was the burning in my chest and the knowledge that the man I’d seen…

That man had hurt Theo.

He’d hurt him in more ways than I could ever imagine, in so many places that I could put back together, that I could touch and hold and soothe… but the scars would still be there.

The only way to truly make them fade was to make sure that the man who had caused them was punished.

Punished.

How many times had I wanted to kill a human? How many times had I slaughtered them while they still had that spark of humanity in their eyes, before they’d changed into monsters? How many times had they saidpleasebefore the roar escaped them?

This was different, though.

It was different, and I knew it.

This man wasn’t an Enmity, but hewasa fucking monster.

It started to rain, but the coolness did nothing for the fire burning in my chest. Somewhere along the end of the line connecting us, I felt Theo—sleeping, still safe—and I realized he would be as long as I felt like this. The darkness in his chest, the violence that threatened to overtake him, threatened to change him?

It was mine now.

I glanced down, and I could see it—little trickles of black, swirling through the white and red in the center of my chest.

I should have been afraid.

I should have been horrified, running back to Gethin or even Aiden… because a cupidcouldn’tturn into an Enmity.

A cupid couldn’t take on their darkness.

This was impossible. It waseveryreason they’d kill Theo and rip my wings out if they ever found out about our connection.

It was dangerous, and forbidden.

I didn’tcare.

I would take it—all of it—if it meant I could do this for Theo.

I would break myself along every line fractured in his body if it meant I coulddo thisfor him.

If I could come back and promise him he’d never have to see the fucker again, that he’d never have tohurtlooking at him.

That no one would ever hurt him again.

By the time I made it to the door of the shitty house, I could barely see past the darkness eating away at the corner of my vision. There was something almost… liberating about it. All the anger, the bitterness I’d ever felt… it coalesced now. It manifested.

It had physical form.

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